Psalm book sets £8.1m auction record for a printed book

The most expensive printed book sold at auction will go on display to the public after the buyer pledged to lend it to libraries across the US before putting it on permanent loan at one of them.

A new record was set when American
businessman and philanthropist David Rubenstein paid $12.5m (£8.1m)
at
Sotheby's New York on November 26 for the Bay Psalm Book - the
first printed book in what is now the USA.

Although the hammer price did not hit the
heights of a $15m-30m estimate, it did climb past the previous
£6.5m record for a printed book record set by an Audubon Birds
of America in 2010 (though some might argue that was
essentially a print collection).

Historical Background

Congregationalist Puritans who had emigrated
to the Massachusetts Bay colony in search of religious freedom
wanted a Book of Psalms closer to the Hebrew original than the one
they had brought from England, and such prominent figures as John
Cotton, Richard Mather and John Eliot were among those who worked
on a new metrical translation.

Funds were raised in England and Holland for
a printing press, types, etc. by the Rev. James Glover, who also
hired Stephen Daye, a locksmith whose 18-year-old son was an
apprentice printer. Glover died on the voyage out but Daye and his
family set up the press and, probably after producing some now lost
ephemeral work, printed 1700 copies of the Bay Psalm Book in
1640.

Just 11 complete examples survive of that
first edition, which was utilitarian and in constant use. This is
one of the two currently retained by the Old South Church in Boston
and the only one previously seen at auction is one they sold at
Parke Bernet in 1947 for a record-shattering $151,000 - a price put
in context by the $22,000 paid for a First Folio Shakespeare and
£2700 for a Birds of America in that same auction season.

The buyer's premium at Sotheby's was 25/20/12%

Antiques Trade Gazette is the weekly bible of the fine art and antiques industry. Read articles like this every week in the Antiques Trade Gazette or ATG app. Click here to subscribe today.